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The general population might not be ready for brain implants for mind-controlled robots, but research on brain interfaces could eliminate the invasive surgery requirements for interacting directly with brain activity -- and then everyone might be able to test drive their own thought-controlled robots. Becoming a cyborg might not appeal to everyone, but remote controlled robots that are easy to operate might be a cool toy.

Next-generation prosthetic limbs will be controlled by a user's thoughts. Some amputees are already testing prosthetic hands and limbs, and a few patients have reported being able to feel texture using devices that interface with remapped nerves. Modular Prosthetic Limbs (MPLs) have a long term goal of not requiring any surgeries or implants to control a dexterous robot, and the price tags will also need to come down from the half million dollar cost of the prototypes. [url]

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Cyborgs are already walking among us -- if you count people who have advanced pacemakers and other implanted devices (eg. insulin pumps, cochlear implants, etc). There are also a handful of folks who are actively trying to become cyborgs, like Kevin Warwick. However, brain implants still need to be a lot less invasive and traumatic if anyone is going to really get a direct, permanent brain interface. Here are just a few links on neuro-interfaces that are making some progress.

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Visual illusions can be fun to observe, and there are countless examples that trick human perception into seeing things that aren't real. However, other senses can also be fooled. As computer interfaces try to engage more senses (eg. touch, spatial awareness, etc), there may be interesting applications for tricking human perception for virtual reality environments. We may also just learn more about how our brains work. Here are just a few illusions that might seem creepy or cool, depending on your point of view.

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The movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is based on a fictional technology that allows people to selectively forget events in their life that they don't want to remember. While that whole movie was dedicated to erasing memories, memory loss actually isn't an uncommon plot device. For example, Men In Black had "neuralyzers" that zapped away a person's memory, and the main character in Memento suffered from a complete loss of his short-term memory. (And don't forget all the soap operas that use amnesia in various convenient situations.) In reality, it's much harder to induce forgetfulness on demand, but some research could make it easier to do so in the future. Here are a few studies you might want to remember -- and later forget.

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Artificial intelligence projects are making significant progress (even though humans seem to keep moving the goalposts for what qualifies as AI). We haven't created any self-conscious computers yet, but some chips and software are more closely mimicking how the human brain works. There still isn't much agreement on how to measure intelligence, though if researchers just continue working on different approaches to creating thinking machines, maybe we'll figure out more about both ourselves and how to make computers learn and interact like people.

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The plot of the classic science fiction short story, Flowers for Algernon has been adapted into a wide range of other stories, TV shows and movies. Upgrading a person's intelligence through some unnatural means provides a temporary fix -- resulting in an addiction to intelligence augmentation (or other complications). In reality, some colleges are starting to deal with students abusing drugs meant to treat ADHD but which also seem to increase mental focus in general. However, other methods that don't use prescription medication to boost brainpower might be harder to regulate. Here are just a few links on the subject of boosting brainpower.

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Big data is a term that's been getting some buzz as the next thing that's going to change everyone's lives (for better or worse, depending on how you look at it). Having a lot of data doesn't necessarily mean you also have a lot of useful knowledge. Garbage in, garbage out, so they say. And making correlations is easy compared to finding a direct causal relationship. However, that hasn't stopped (so-called) journalists from writing misleading headlines. If you hate correlations being mistaken for causation, submit examples you've seen in the comments below. Here are just a few to start off.

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Sleep is a vital bodily function -- even if no one knows exactly why we do it. There's a lot of sleep research, but not a lot of solid answers for the origins of sleep. But that doesn't mean we're not learning cool stuff about sleeping all the time. Here are just a few tidbits of research on the topic of sleeping.

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Discussions about technology's impact on the brain are all too often couched in fear-mongering and sensationalism, but the truth remains that, like all human habits and activities, our use of devices does affect the way we think. It's difficult to say much more than that with any level of certainty, but as with all great mysteries, scientists continue to gradually chip away at it one question at a time — and sometimes figuring out how to put what they learn to work. We might not be plugging our brains directly into computers yet, but here are a few ways the two have become connected anyway:

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Who wouldn't want to improve their brain function simply by playing some games or doing some brain training exercises? (If doing homework or reading counts as a brain training exercise, though, there are plenty of students who don't seem to want to better their brains.) Brain games are getting popular (have you seen any Lumosity ads recently?), and there are already plenty of educational software programs for skills like learning foreign languages. Some of these brain games claim to help you maintain your cognitive skills as you get older, and there's even some evidence that these claims could be true. Here are just a few examples of brain games that could help keep us all mentally fit for decades to come.